A wireless communication system is a complex network of systems and elements. Typically, the wireless communication system elements include (1) a radio link to the mobile stations (e.g., cellular telephones), which is usually provided by at least one and typically several base stations, (2) communication links between the base stations, (3) a controller, typically one or more base station controllers or centralized base station controllers (BSC/CBSC), to control communication between and to manage the operation and interaction of the base stations, (4) a call controller (e.g., a mobile switching center (MSC)) or switch, typically a call agent (i.e., a “softswitch”), for routing calls within the system, and (5) a link to the land line or public switch telephone network (PSTN), which is usually also provided by the call agent.
One aspect of designing a wireless communication system is to optimize the resources available to the wireless communication system. That is, one method of improving the availability of resources is to reduce the amount of time required to restore an errant resource back to operational status. Typically, a reset protocol is initiated by a controller when a communication resource such as a remote device does not respond to a command by the controller. For example, a base station controller may initiate a reset protocol if a base station is not responding to commands from the base station controller. However, the base station may not be able to receive, and therefore, initiate the reset protocol from the base station controller when the base station is not operable to respond to any commands from the base station controller. That is, the base station may not have been responding to the base station controller prior to the transmission of the reset protocol. As a result, the base station may not be functionally restored without a visit to the physical equipment itself for maintenance.
Therefore, a need exists for resetting a communication resource so that a controller may reestablish communication with the communication resource to optimize communication resources of the wireless communication system.